Waverunners on City's Shopping List

San Diego may be having budget problems, but the City is still in the market for five brand-new shiny black FX HO Yamaha Waverunners, so-called personal watercraft that start at about $12,199 each, according to the manufacturer’s website. “The FX HO has all the design features that are most familiar to current lifeguard PWC operators and have a proven track record and has been used successfully in a variety of conditions,” according to the City’s request for bid.

In a separate action, the City is looking for someone to “design and build an Electronic Information Kiosk” to reside inside a new “Business Resource Center” that is intended to occupy the long-vacant City Store in the lobby of city hall at 202 C Street. Details are sparse, but according to the City’s “request for quotation,” part of the project is a four-by-four-foot green-fabric-covered kiosk with a city seal that will contain “computer equipment” to be installed by the City. The old City Store, a pet project of city manager Jack McGrory and Mayor Susan Golding back in the early ’90s, offered customers a collection of replica street signs, fire hydrants, Blacks Beach T-shirts, Shamu figurines, and other municipal memorabilia until it was shuttered two years ago.

Floor plans for the new center show an “interactive touch computer,” a “work table/help desk,” and a “large display monitor,” along with supersized graphics including the words “Finance,” “Bio-Technology,” “Health Care,” and “Hotels and Restaurants.” According to the documents, the center would “feature San Diego’s Finest City [sic]” and “Showcase Some Key Businesses” along with a photo of Mayor Jerry Sanders. A “hand sanitizer dispenser” is also specified. No cost provided.

OK this is an issue we need to address. I have been swimming in the ocean for the passed 10 years. it is my favorite part about summer, but now I am absolutely terrified, not of drowning or being eaten by a shark but of being decapitated by a lifeguard on a waverunner. I wish I had had my camera. When I was in coronado I witnessed the lifeguards taking turns on the waverunner and FLYING like 70 miles an hour parallel to the shore 20-30 feet behind swimmers. they werent rescuing anyone just playing. they spent the whole day playing on these things. I was too scared to go for a swim and it really bummed me out that this was now so pervasive. I thought it was just a matter of time until someone was killed by 1 of these things the same way the lifeguards flying down the beach in there buggy ran over a sunbather and killed her. This is a bad bad bad idea.